Interlocutor II

Another small side chat

This past week I started Christmas Shopping. I am hard to shop for so I often buy things for my wife to give me. She appreciates it. I bought the new Bob Dylan book, The Philosophy of Modern Song at Nashville’s The Bookshop.
Quick plug. So you know, The Bookshop can order all of your Christmas book needs and you can pick them up from the store. Just give them a call or email them your list.

While at check out, the owner and I thumbed through the book mostly curious about where it was printed and if it sells out in the weeks up to Black Friday what the odds are of the Publisher getting more stock in. They printed it in the US! A full color book with a hefty page count. They must have been desperate. I bet that the author, Bob Dylan, took up until the last minute to finish his work erasing any ability to print in India, Korea, or China. Who is Bob Dylan you ask? Well, he’s a writer who, “Needs no introduction,” as the saying goes.

Apparently, the Publisher thought that too. Exhibit A-the back Jacket flap. This is where the author information goes. Nothing. Empty as a safe deposit box after a break in.

Now, we surmised that it was maybe intentional, along the lines of him needing no introduction. In this age of boring, cookie cutter, no one can think we made a mistake, erase all mystery proclivities, I think this is unlikely. Perhaps the author’s team would not approve of the content in time and it was left off, intentionally. Still, the Publisher could have cobbled together some sort of generic phrasing. If nothing else, a photo of the author. Maybe it was a mistake? This always reminds me of Jennifer Garner’s line in Alexander and the No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Day film adaptation. When faced with a massive print errors she says, “There must have been some horrible mistake at the printer.” Oh Jen, if that were true editors would sleep well at night. Alas, they, the printers, print what they are given. I am a big fan of Jennifer Garner. She spoke the words that many of us have heard or uttered in the clutches of an error. So maybe it was just a mistake.

So what do you do?

Fire someone? Ha, probably not. Unless this is the 10th time they have done something like this then maybe.

Take solace that this happened to a mysterious, mercurial, American icon, who’s career is full of bobbing and weaving at attempts to nail him down? Perhaps. I like that.

Practically, you have good news here. It’s only the jacket. You can pay a fulfillment house to take the incorrect jackets off, pay a printer to print new jackets (make sure you get a template) and pay the fulfillment house to put the new jackets on. Now, you’ll see the cost to do this adds a few dollars onto your cost of product. Then, the take solace option starts looking better. Someone has to ask the author how big of a deal this is. Everyone will be too afraid to do this, so they will end up spending the money to fix it without ever finding out if the author would have found it, charming.

Further on the note of practicality. There is nothing wrong. There is no error. There is no glaring misspelled word. I saw on Facebook yesterday where someone bought the new Beatles Revolver box-set and the spine said, Revoler. That, that, would be panic time. In our Dylan book’s case, there is no need for panic fortunately.

Well, let me know what you think happened and what you would do. Best regards, till next time.